I spend a lot of my time working with clients, training new counsellors on our courses or working as a clinical supervisor with other practitioners. I live and breathe counselling and know the conventions and language of my profession. As a practice we confidently advertise in various publications and on social media. A thought that has recently come to my mind is this. I know what counselling or therapy is and what our clients can reasonably expect but do they? What does an average person think about counselling and what happens in a counselling session and when people contact us?

Most people get in touch with us at Lifetime because they are experiencing some sort of difficulty, either in their own life or in a relationship. Many can feel at this point as if there is something wrong with them. They can feel embarrassed and ashamed that they have felt the need to reach out for support and worried what people would think about them if they knew that they were asking for help. Often they see coming for counselling as an admission of weakness. Discretion can be an enormous concern and a factor in whether they seek out support. At Lifetime, confidentiality underpins everything we do. Our clients can be certain that apart from a few reasonable exceptions, everything they say to us is confidential. The principle exception is a risk of harm to themselves or another person and a situation like that would be dealt with the utmost sensitivity.

So how does the process work? From deciding that counselling is for you, what happens from initial enquiry to actually being in a room with one of our team?

The easiest way to make contact with us is through our website or you can email us at info@lifetimetherapy.co.uk. We will be back in touch generally within a few hours. We know how hard it can be to reach out and always try to respond to enquiries as quickly as possible. We will always respond in the way you ask us to and will only phone or leave a message if you have said we can. Sometimes an email response is all that we need to arrange some sessions with one of the team. Costs can range from £40-£70 per 50 minute session with a qualified counsellor or we offer a low cost service at £20 per session through our internship programme.

Once a session has been arranged you can be sure of three things; Confidentiality, a warm welcome and complete acceptance. Your counsellor will complete a short form of agreement between you and them. There is no minimum number of sessions and you simply pay each time you see your counsellor. We do our best to make the process a straightforward as possible and hope that these few words might help anyone who is thinking about reaching out to do just that.